Device for actuating openable cover members for watch face

ABSTRACT

1,174,679. Ornamenting. G. JUILLERAT. 21 Nov., 1967 [31 Jan., 1967], No. 52936/67. Heading B6G. [Also in Division G3] A pendant watch, provided with pivoted covers 8, 9 for the dial face 3, has a case of an outer form simulating a penguin. Reference has been directed by the Comptroller to Specification 969,156.

y 20,1969 G.JUIL.'LQERA T 3,444,685

DEVICE FOR ACTUATING OPENABLE COVER MEMBERS FOR WATCH FACE Filed Nov. 20, 1967 INVENTOR GEORGES JUI LLERAT jwa aamw m RNEYS United States Patent 3,444,685 DEVICE FOR ACTUATING OPENABLE COVER MEMBERS FOR WATCH FACE Georges Juillerat, Pleln Soleil, Malleray, Bern, Switzerland Filed Nov. 20, 1967, Ser. No. 684,302 Claims priority, application Switzerland, Jan. 31, 1967,

1,394/ 67 Int. Cl. G04b 37/00 U.S. Cl. 58-95 9 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A watch having openable door members for exposing the watch dial face which is normally covered by said door members, said members being arranged to pivot in opposite directions relative to each other and being urged in either of opposite pivotal directions by a snap-over type spring means which is elastically deformed therebetween and which performs its snap-over action by virtue of being guided to move only in a direction which is transverse to the plane in which lie the door member pivot axes, said spring means being so movable consequent to rotation of either door member.

This invention is directed to a watch having movable door-like members which can be actuated to either cover or expose the watch dial face, and specifically to an improved actuating device for said door-like members.

Generally, such devices are well known; however, they suffer from various disadvantages. In known devices, the watch face is normally covered by a pair of door members arranged edgewise alongside each other and pivotable in opposite directions about a common pivot axis. Both doors usually are acted upon by an over-center or snap-over type spring means which alternately acts to urge the doors to either an open or a closed position depending upon the location of the points at which the spring means acts against the respective doors relative to the door pivot axis, said points shifting between opposite sides of the door pivot axis when the doors are pivoted to a certain extent in either direction. The open position of the doors is delimited by stops against which the doors are urged by the spring means while the closed position of the doors is delimited by the facing door edges abutting against each other also under the urging of said spring means. In order to open the doors, a person simply actuates the doors against the urging of said spring means in order to open the doors to a certain extent at which point the spring means performs its over-center or snapover action and then by itself completes the opening of the doors. Conversely, when it is desired to close the doors from their open position, a person must close them against the urging of said spring means only until the snap-over action occurs in the opposite direction whereupon the spring means will itself urge the doors to and maintain them in a closed position.

The aforedescribed door cover means are applied especially to travel clocks and to pendant or vest pocket type watch pieces. A very common drawback in the known door cover means, however, is that it is necessary for the person to grip both doors and to displace them simultaneously in either the opening or closing direction until the snap-over action occurs; otherwise, if a person were to grip and act upon only one of the doors, there is a good possibility that the device, particularly the snapover means and related parts, would be damaged.

It is an object of this invention, therefore, to provide an improved device for actuating the dial face cover doors of a watch piece.

3,444,685 Patented May 20, 1969 ice It is an object specifically of this invention to provide an improved door actuating device which is not susceptible to damage as a result of only one door being acted upon by a person.

It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved door actuating device which includes a common control member for simultaneously actuating both doors.

Other objects are those which are inherent and/0r obvious in the invention as disclosed herein.

The foregoing objects are generally realized through an arrangement whereby a snap-over type spring member is arranged to act upon both doors simultaneously in a manner whereby the spring member can transmit without difficulty the movements of either door to the other door. Furthermore, the invention makes it possible to provide a single hand-actuable control member which is arranged to act up on said spring member to effect simultaneous actuation of both doors.

Following is a detailed description of a preferred embodiment of a watch according to this invention, reference being bad to the accompanying drawing wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a front elevation view of a watch piece which includes cover doors in accordance with this invention, showing the cover doors in closed position;

FIGURE 2 is a side sectional view of the Watch piece of FIGURE 1; and

FIGURE 3 is a view analogous to FIGURE 1 but showing the cover doors in open position.

The watch shown in the drawing is a pendant watch, the outer appearance of which simulates a penguin. It comprises a conventional movement holding case 1 in which the watch movement is housed and which includes a glass 2 which permits the viewing of the dial 3 and of the hands 4. As in customary pendant watches, the twelve oclock marking is at the bottom and the winding crown 5 is radially aligned with the twelve oclock marking. The case 1 is housed in a cylindrical recess 7 in housing 6 over which the two cover elements 8 and 9 normally extend. The latter are pivoted on cylindrical studs 10 and 11 which are rigidly connected on the front part of the housing 6.

Studs 10 and 11 are held in place by head 12 provided with various cut-outs and rigidly fastened to the member 6 by a screw 13. One of the cut-outs of the head 12 provides space around the studs 10 and 11 which is sufiicient to permit free movement of the lugs 14 and 15, which are provided on the doors or cover elements 8 and 9 respectively, when each of said doors pivots around its respective stud. The doors extend up to contact with head 12 thereby preventing an accidental release of the cover elements. At the upper end of head 12 which is axially opposite the crown 5, there is provided a bore 16 which extends along the axis of symmetry of the member 6 from the periphery of head 12 into a main internal recess 25 located between the studs 10 and 11. In bore 16 there is slidably fitted a cylindrical rod 17 which terminates at the outer end thereof located on the exterior of head 12 in a loop 18. The latter is for gripping with a persons finger and also is intended to permit ,the watch to be suspended from a chain or strap, for instance. At its inner end, a rivet 19 fastens rod 17 to an elastically deformable blade 20, which may, for instance, be of steel and is of a generally U-configuration comprising a rectilinear base portion B from the ends of which extend opposite rectilinear legs L which are inwardly bent towards each other by virtue of their free ends, which terminate in flanges 21, 22 respectively, being compressed towards each other by the L-shaped notch portions 23, 24 of doors 8 and 9. Said flanges 21, 22 generally extend parallel to base B.

The lugs 14 and 15 of the respective doors 8 and 9 include said L-shaped notches 23 and 24, respectively, along their upper inner sides, the sides of the notches being generally perpendicular to each other. The flanges 21 and 22 are seated within the notches and resiliently bear against the L-shaped edge portions of lugs 14 and 15.

It will also be noted that the extreme end portions of flanges 21, 22 fit snugly within the crotch portions of the respective L-shaped notches. This relationship results in the feature that any rotation at all of doors 8 and 9 causes said notches to exert a translational impulse upon said flanges along an axis which is perpendicular to the plane defined by the axes of pins and .11, namely: along the axis of the housing members 6 and 12. When doors 8 and 9 are in closed position (FIGURE 1) the notches 23 and 24 are located above a horizontal plane extending through the axes of the pivot pins 10 and 11 so that blade 20 acts to maintain said doors in the closed position by urging them to pivot towards each other.

If a person were to press downwardly on pin 17, the entire blade 20 would be moved downward with flanges 21 and 22 pressing against the horizontal edges of notches 23 and 24 and thereby uring the doors 8 and 9 to pivot towards an open position. It is necessary to press pin 17 downwardly only until flanges 2'1 and 22 cross over to below a horizontal plane extending between the axes of pins 10 and 1.1, at which point the outward urging of spring legs L by itself continues to pivot the doors 8 and 9 until they have reached their fully opened positions of FIGURE 3.

Alternatively, it is not necessary to press downwardly on pin 17 in order to open the doors; instead, one can simply grip either one of the doors, 8 or 9, and pivot it towards an open position and this simply results in the blade 20 being pulled downwardly by virtue of the interengagement of one of the flanges, 21 or 22, with the door which is being turned by hand. Since the blade 20 is such that when one leg L is pulled downwardly, the blade in its entirety follows that leg, it results that the pivoting of one door is transmitted through the spring to the other door. In other words, if one door 8 or 9 is opened by hand, the other door follows the movement of the first door and also opens. This action is assured by the fact that spring 20 is attached to pin 17 which prevents lateral movement of said spring by virtue of pin 17 being positively guided laterally by bore 16. In other words, pin 17 holds spring 20 against any lateral movement relative to the vertical axis of housing 6 and head 12; therefore, when either one of the doors 8 or 9 is pivoted, it forces spring 20 to move along said vertical axis rather than laterally relative thereto, and consequently, spring 20 transmits the movements of one door accurately to the other door.

As in the instance of pushing downward on pin 17, it is necessary to open one door by hand only until flanges 21, 22 cross over to below a plane extending between the axes of pins '10 and .11; at this point, the spring 20 takes over and completes the opening of the doors and the maintenance of same in open position.

The closing of the doors from the open position of FIGURE 3 to that of FIGURE 1 is accomplished by either pulling up on pin 17 or by directly gripping either door and pivoting same towards a closed position. The manual closing action, as in the case of the opening action, is only necessary until the flanges 21, 22 cross over to above the aforementioned plane extending between the axes of pins '10, 11, at which point the action of spring 20 takes over to complete the closing of the doors and the maintenance thereof in closed position.

It is obvious, of course, that a person may, if desired, grip both doors and simultaneously urge them to either open or closed position. The foregoing description has mentioned the gripping of only one door since this is often most convenient to the person using the time piece and, furthermore, to accentuate the fact that the invention permits a person to act only upon one door and thereby achieve actuation of both doors and without damaging the door mechanism.

With reference to FIGURE 3, it will be seen that the upper ends of the L-shaped notches abut against the legs L of the spring 20, so that the notches and the spring 20 constitute a stop means delimiting the maximum opening of the doors.

What is claimed is:

L A watch having a dial face and a pivoted door means for selectively covering or exposing said face, an over center spring means acting against said door means to urge same alternately towards open and closed positions relative to said face dependent upon the position of said door means relative to a reference cross over position at which said spring means reverses its action on said door means, said spring means being displaceable along a displacement axis which is perpendicular to the pivot axis of said door means, guide means to prevent displacement of said spring means in a lateral direction relative to said displacement axis.

2. The watch of claim 1, including a housing member having an axially extending bore therein, and wherein said guide means comprises a control member slidably mounted in said axially extending bore, said spring means comprising a spring member rigidly attached to said con trol member at a first location on said spring member, a second location on said spring member bearing against a part of said door means, said spring member being resiliently deformed in a lateral direction between said first and second locations thereof by the action thereon of said control member and said door means.

3. The watch of claim 1, said door means including two doors pivotally mounted to pivot in opposite directions relative to each other to assume closed or open positions relative to said dial face, said spring means bearing simultaneously against respective parts of said two doors so as to urge same at any one time in opposite rotative directions relative to each other.

4. The watch of claim 3, said two doors being pivoted about respective spaced apart door pivot axes, said spring means comprising a flat spring having opposite legs extending generally parallel to each other and respectively bearing against respective ones of said doors, said legs being resiliently deformed between said doors in the direction of a line extending between said door pivot axes.

5. The watch of claim 4, including a housing member having an axially extending bore therein, said guide means comprising a control member slidably mounted in said bore, said flat spring including a base portion extending generally perpendicularly between said legs, said control member being rigidly attached to said base portion intermediately of said legs.

6. The watch of claim 4, said doors each comprising a spring engaging surface portion located proximate to said door pivot axis such that with said doors in fully closed position said surface portion lies on one side of a plane defined by said door pivot axes and with said doors in fully open position said surface portion lies on the opposite side of said plane, one of said opposite legs of said spring means having a portion thereof bearing against a said surface portion of a respective one of said doors in a manner whereby said door surface portion urges its co-engaging leg portion of said spring means along said displacement axis pursuant to rotation of said door.

7. The watch of claim 6, said legs of said spring means including free end portions which are formed as flanges extending generally perpendicularly to said legs, said door surface portions being generally L-shaped, the ends of said flanges fitting snugly within the crotch portions of said L-shaped surface portions whereby rotation of said door surface portions has a translated displacement effect upon said flanges.

8. The watch of claim 2, said control member extending to outwardly of said housing member and having a finger-grippable portion thereat, displacement of said control member along said bore eifecting a corresponding displacement of said spring means along said displacement axis.

9. The watch of claim 8, wherein said finger-grippable portion is loop-shaped for attachment to a chain member whereby said watch is a pendant type watch.

6 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 6/1913 Jaeger 58-102 U.S. Cl. X.R. 

